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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS HOW THE CIA & NSA HELP AMERICAN FIRMS WIN CONTRACTS ocuments obtained by the Independent on Sunday reveal how the CIA and NSA (US Ds Security Agency) have immersed themselves in the new hot trade war. Targets have included UK and European firms. At stake are contracts worth billions of dollars. For America's spies, an important tool has been the global eavesdropping system known by the code name Echelon, which has come to invoke the tag of Big Brother of the cyberspace age. Echelon is part of a British/American-run worldwide spy system that can "suck up" phone calls, faxes and e-mails sent by satellite. America's intelligence agencies have been able to intercept these vital private communications, often between foreign governments and European businesses, to help the US win major contracts. Britain's role in Echelon, via its ultra-secret eavesdropping agency GCHQ, has put Tony Blair's government in the dock facing its European partners. European politicians meet on Wednesday in Strasbourg and Berlin to call for inquiries into electronic espionage by the US to beat competitors. These debates follow two years of controversy about Echelon, as its astonish- ing power has gradually been revealed. But the real origin of the current row lies in the early 1990s, when US politicians and intelli- gence chiefs decided that the formidable but underemployed Cold War US intelligence appara- tus should be redirected against its allies' economies. At stake was not just routine international trade, but new opportunities created by the demise of communism and fast-growing markets in countries that US trade officials dubbed "BEMs"—Big Emerging Markets such as China, Brazil and Indonesia. Perhaps the most startling result of the new Clinton policy came in January 1994, when the then French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur flew to Riyadh to conclude a US$6-billion deal for arms, airliners and maintenance, including sales of the European Airbus. He flew home empty-handed. The Baltimore Sun later reported that "from a commercial communications satellite, NSA lifted all the faxes and phone calls between the European consortium Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi government. The agency found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official. It passed the information to US officials pressing the bid of Boeing Co." Clinton's government intervened with the Saudis and the contract went to Boeing. This is just one of hundreds of "success" stories openly boasted by the US Government's "Advocacy Center" up to the present day. They do not say where the CIA or NSA was decisive in winning a contract, but often brag of beating British, European or Japanese competitors. Cases where the US "beat" British competitors include power generation, engineering and telecommunications contracts in the Philippines, Malawi, Peru, Tunisia and Lebanon. In India, the CIA tracked British competitive strategies in a competition to build a 700 MW power station near Bombay. In January 1995, the $400-million contract was awarded to the US companies Enron, GE and Bechtel. Also in 1995, General Electric Power Systems won a $120- million tender to build a plant in Tunisia. "They beat intense competition from French, German, Italian and British firms for the project," the Center boasts. Documents and information obtained by the Independent on Sunday show that the critical question of whether US intelligence should systematically help business was resolved after the election of Clinton in 1993, when he launched a policy "to aggressively support US bidders in global competitions where advocacy is in the national interest". Three SIGINT (signals intelligence) reports obtained by the Independent on Sunday are economic in nature. All the reports are classified "TOP SECRET UMBRA', indicating that highly-sensitive monitoring techniques were used to get the information. The heart of the new, co-ordinated Clinton trade campaign is the Advocacy Center, run by the Trade Promotion Co-ordinating Committee within the Department of Commerce. Declassified minutes of the Trade Promotion Co-ordinating Committee meetings from 1994 show that the CIA's role in drumming up business for the US was not limited to looking for bribery or even lobbying by foreign governments. For a series of meetings dealing with Indonesia, 16 officials were circulated with information. Five of the officials were from the CIA; three of the five worked inside the Commerce Department itself, in a department called the Office of Executive Support, and the fifth, Robert Beamer, was from CIA headquarters. In reality, the Office of Executive Support is a high-security office located inside the Commerce Department. It is staffed by CIA officials with top-secret security clearances and equipped with direct links from US intelligence agencies. Until recently, it was known (more revealingly) as the Office of Intelligence Liaison. According to Loch K. Johnson, a staff member of the US Intelligence Reform Commission set up in 1993, officials at the departments of Commerce, Treasury and State pass information to US companies without revealing the intelligence source. "At Commerce, there's no code or book to consult to say when and what information can be passed to a US company," he said. (Source: By Duncan Campbell and Paul Lashmar, Independent on Sunday, 3 July 2000, www.independent.co.uk/news/) public resoundingly rejected in a stance which triggered the 1987 general election. That plan would have had all Australians issued with an ID card for taxation, health and welfare purposes and the Health Insurance Commission (HIC) administer- ing a central database. Both of the proposed new systems are to be operated by the HIC, which administers the PBS pharmacy network and the Medicare Benefits Scheme. From January 2001, doctors will be required to write a patient's Medicare number on prescrip- tions, and patients will need to show their cards to the pharmacist as proof of identity. It's expected that the medication record system will be in place by July 2001, but Federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge has stressed that participation in the system would be voluntary for con- sumers, doctors and pharmacists. A Health Department spokesperson has commented that the system is intended to reduce med- ication misadventures in the community. (Source: By Karen Dearne, Australian, 23 May 2000, www.australianIT.com.au) CONCERN OVER BANNED DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER DRUG ADVERTS IN AUSTRALIA hat do Viagra, Relenza, Celebrex, Xenical and Fosamax have in com- mon? They are all newish pharmaceutical drugs which are being pushed in the Australian media via thinly disguised, direct-to-consumer advertisements. The practice of advertising drugs—and the diseases they are claimed to treat— directly to consumers is banned in Australia, but drug manufacturers are try- ing to overturn this rule and have set up a lobby group, the Patient-Industry forum, as part of a global push to get closer to those who would use their products. The print and TV ads, many of which are styled and presented as community service announcements, are big on emotion and low in information content (by regulation), and point potential consumers to their doc- tors who have already been "educated" by the drug company representatives. The Australian Consumers Association opposes such ads but wants information about medicines to be made more widely available, claiming that these consumer- directed ads don't provide sufficient details on the drugs or their adverse side-effects. (Sources: Australian, 9 May; Financial Review, Sydney 10-12 June, 20 June 2000) NEXUS <9 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2000